Strip Off Your Clothes and Dance
by Captain Evermind
Summary: John is married to a pregnant assassin, Greg is involved in an acrimonious custody battle, and Sherlock has just been shot in the chest by his best friend's wife. Oddly enough, none of them are feeling exactly enamoured of the gentler sex just at present. A weekend of bonfires, beer, and male-bonding provides the antidote. Or "in which John takes Sally's advice, and goes fishing".
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: This started life as a one-shot, but grew too unweildly. I warn you now, there is no plot. Just blokes drinking beer and fishing. And also swearing quite a lot._

 _._

* * *

 _On that stony savage shore_

 _Strip off your clothes and dance, for_

 _Unless you are capable_

 _Of forgetting completely_

 _About Atlantis, you will_

 _Never finish your journey._

 _._

 _\- W. H. Auden, 'Atlantis'._

 _._

* * *

"How is he?" Greg asked quietly. "Really?"

He glanced sideways at John – just a flicker of his face in three-quarter profile, before his eyes went back to the road.

"He's – better," John said.

The white lines on the tarmac sped beneath them, each momentarily dazzling in the headlights of the land rover. Dark shapes of trees swelled abruptly out of the darkness, then dwindled again behind them. The windscreen wipers swayed in hypnotic rhythm; the light glinted on the raindrops that lay beyond their arc.

John's eyes moved involuntarily to the rear-view mirror. Sherlock lay flat on his back, the centre seatbelt loose about his waist. His legs sprawled awkwardly; his left knee grazed the ceiling, and the right was bent weirdly backwards, his sock-clad foot resting on the floor below his hip. His eyes twitched rapidly beneath their lids.

Greg made a right, and the headlights swung dizzily across the slick surface of the road. He drove lazily, one-handed, his broad palm casually spanning the centre of the wheel, his elbow propped against the window frame. It was irresponsible, a little cocky; the attitude of a teenager. But Greg was like that: responsible to a fault in his working life, with friends he was cheeky and boyish, easy-going and a little foolhardy. John liked that in him; appreciated the contrast, and the compliment implicit in being allowed to see it. There was no pedantry; no pretence at being any holier or more law-abiding than the next man. Greg was the sort of cop who could cheerfully (if a little ruefully) admit to a speeding fine, or laugh uproariously at a friend's well-deserved 'drunk and disorderly'. He was a police officer who knew when to temper legality with humanity, and John liked him for it.

Greg glanced sideways again, eyebrows quirked in an unspoken request for elaboration on the topic of Sherlock's injury. John complied.

"He's still a mess," he admittedly quietly, mindful lest he wake the object of their discussion. "The bruising's faded a lot, but he still looks like an ad for poster paint. He's tired all the time, and driving me spare because he's bored out of his skull."

Greg shifted down, and the whine of the engine altered subtly. He made another right, this time onto a narrow, unsealed road. The land rover juddered over gravel.

"He still gets woken up by the pain some nights," John said. "I'd forgotten how much it bloody _hurts_."

"Bet you never thought you'd say that."

John smiled grimly. "No."

" _God…_ " Greg exhaled softly. "If I could get my hands on the son of a bitch who did it…"

His hand tightened forcefully on the wheel, but he didn't look angry. He looked old and tired.

"Yeah," John said, a hollow feeling where his lungs should have been. "Yeah. I know."

.

They drew off the gravel road and onto a farm track; then through an open gate and onto grass. When Greg switched off the engine, they could hear crickets calling in the silence. The moon had risen and hung directly in front of them; it was a half-moon, as straight-edged as if smoothed by a plane. By its light they saw the grey shadow of hills and the glint of a stream.

Sherlock woke when the engine stilled, and shuffled himself into an upright position, rearranging his gangling limbs. John glanced at him, wary of his mood, but all he said was: "Thank you for driving, Lestrade."

They pitched the tent by the light of the land rover's headlights. Sherlock did not help, exactly, but he shrugged himself into his coat and stood beside the car, stretching on the balls of his feet and snuffing the air like some small, curious wild animal.

.

* * *

Greg woke John with a hand on his shoulder at 5.30 in the morning.

"Come on," he whispered. "Rise and shine sweetheart."

It was pitch-dark in the tent. They found their clothes by touch and dressed hastily, layering jumpers one atop the other.

John's hand moved cautiously across the intervening space until he found where Sherlock lay. The breath was warm and regular against the back of his knuckles.

"Let's leave Sleeping Beauty here for a bit, yeah?" he whispered to Greg.

.

Outside, the darkness was less absolute; the moon was gone, but the stars were visible, colder and nearer-seeming than in London. They scuffed on their dew-damp boots with chilled and clumsy feet.

By torch-light, they lowered the tray of the land rover and shuffled through the neatly-packed supplies. Greg laid the rods out on the tray to assemble them, while John was dispatched to dig for worms.

Stepping cautiously in the wet grass, he made his way down the bank. A tangle of willows grew alongside the stream, and bare, dark earth lay exposed about their roots. John crouched in their shadow and delved with strong, blunt fingers; the wet soil loosened and came away easily. A late-summer smell lingered in the earth and grass, but there was an autumnal chill in the air.

By the time Greg joined him, laden with rods and tackle and other paraphernalia, John had a respectable number of worms writhing and thrashing in an old tin, and the sky had lightened to grey. Over his several jumpers, Greg had added an enormous, shapeless garment of the type worn by farmers. It was made of coarse wool in a pattern of red and black tartan, and it hung down almost to his knees.

They got their lines into the water with plenty of time before sunrise, and sat on the bank watching the lazy progress of the stream. It eddied around rocks and submerged branches and skirled tauntingly about the roots of the willows; as the fish rose, ripples began to appear on the surface in concentric, ever-widening rings. Greg lit a small gas cooker and brewed tea in a billy. The warmth was very welcome, and they drank in enjoyable silence, passing a tin mug back and forth between them.

The sky faded from grey to yellow to pearly white, and finally to blue – a beautiful, crisp, end-of-summer day.

By the time Sherlock made an appearance, tousled, yawning, and swathed head-to-foot in a sleeping bag, it was almost ten o'clock; John had built a neat camp fire, and Greg had a round half-dozen of little, fat trout sizzling in a pan. Of the three of them, Greg was by common consent the designated chef. John's cooking was of the strictly-functional-and-nutritious variety, while Sherlock – under circumstances of extreme duress – could produce a total of two dishes not-originating in a tin: omelette and bread-and-butter pudding.

They ate breakfast sitting on the river bank. Sherlock sat with his legs crossed, the sleeping bag draped around his shoulders like a cape. He was dressed only in a pair of grey-striped pyjama pants, and looked ridiculously adolescent with his bare chest exposed and a full two inches of ankle visible above his long, pale feet (in fact, Sherlock was broader in the chest than his tailored suits suggested, and not actually as tall as everybody seemed to think he was; yet there was still something about his hunched and sleeping bag-shrouded figure that brought words like 'lanky' or 'gangling' to mind). The exposed sliver of Sherlock's chest revealed a carefully-taped surgical dressing and a spectacular array of technicolour bruises that covered him from ribs to abdomen. John's description of him as an advertisement for poster paint had been slightly exaggerated, Greg noted with relief, but there was still an impressive palette of colours on display, incorporating everything from coffee to avocado, peridot to deep mauve, and indigo to a faded yellow-grey.

John produced a six-pack of Fuller's from where it had lain cooling in the stream and tossed a can to Greg. Sherlock raised his eyebrows.

"Beer for breakfast, John? Really?"

Greg shrugged, flicking the can open with a satisfying hiss. "Hey, we're on holiday."

John grinned. "He's just jealous 'cause he's not allowed any."

By eleven o'clock, Sherlock was starting to be restless and fidgety.

"Are you going to do this _all_ day?" he grumbled.

John gave a blissful sigh. "With any luck, yep."

Greg chuckled at Sherlock's look of pique. John lay flat on his back with his eyes closed and his arms behind his head; he stretched languorously, looking absurdly contended and cat-like.

"Is there any point in my asking _why_ you intend to lie around on a river bank drinking beer all day?"

"Mmm… 'cause it's relaxing," John said sleepily.

"Why do you _need_ relaxing? We haven't done anything in weeks!"

"Yeah, and you've been driving John spare the whole time. He's an old man, remember? He can't take it."

"Oi! Who's old?"

"You are John," Greg said. He patted him on the head, quite kindly. "It's not your fault. Happens to the best of us. But that's what married life does to you."

"Oh yeah, because my married life is _so_ full of domestic bliss."

"Jooo-ohn! I'm _bored!_ "

"Go for a walk," John suggested. "Investigate the toxic qualities of pond weed or analyse the different varieties of cow shit or something."

"Or you could get some more firewood."

Sherlock scowled at them.

"Even if the two of you have to waste hours at a time sitting around in the mindless pursuit of aquatic life, why did you have to bring me?"

"You can translate, right?" John asked, yawning. "You know that that means _'Thanks, Greg, for organising a nice, restful holiday for me when I'm all weak and pathetic and injured'_."

"Yeah, 'course. Wasn't that what he said?"

John chuckled. Even Sherlock's mouth turned up a little at the corners.

"To be honest, I can't take all the credit," Greg said. "It was Sally's idea, oddly enough."

"Funny," John said. "She told me once that I should try fishing." He shrugged. "'Course, I thought she was a world-class bitch, at the time."

"Oh, she is," Greg agreed with an easy grin. "But she's _my_ bitch."

"The Chief Inspector know you talk about your staff that way?"

Greg flicked a worm at him.

"I don't think you can afford to take the moral high ground where Chief Inspectors are concerned, mate."

John's reply was lost under a hail of twigs and torn up grass.

"BORED!" Sherlock bellowed. "Bored, bored, BORED!"

.

Breakfast drifted into lunch without their really noticing. With the sun high in the sky, John and Greg shucked a few of their extraneous layers, and Sherlock abandoned the sleeping bag (it was in fact _John's_ sleeping bag, which accounted for Sherlock's willingness to trail it behind him through a damp field).

By one o'clock, even John was ready to concede that it wasn't possible to lie supine for an entire 24-hour period, so for novelty's sake they switched to fly-fishing. It was very pleasant, wading softly through the thigh-deep, green-shaded water beneath the willows. Sherlock had drifted off by himself, seemingly content to potter now that his token objection had been lodged. For awhile he was still visible away upstream of them, picking his way easily among the tree roots or crouching for long, still minutes to peer intently at some object of interest. Greg was a little way ahead of John – near enough to talk, but distant enough that there was no obligation.

"Did you say this was a family place?" John asked.

Greg gave a grunt of acknowledgement. He cast, smoothly and easily, and the flex of the rod sounded loud in the quiet of the afternoon.

"Family's friend's," he said. "He was a mate of my Dad's back when they were at school. Had kids the same age as us lot, so Dad used to bring us out here to go fishing. Then when we grew up and had kids of our own, we brought them too."

"So where are the boys this weekend?" John asked, a mite over-casually.

Greg was quiet a moment. His head was down, and he played the line mechanically between his hands. John could not see his face, only a brief tightening of his jaw, a tension that distorted the shape of his mouth.

"They're with Annie," Greg said. "Or more likely her parents. She hasn't been around much."

John did him the favour of not expressing sympathy. There was nothing he could say.

.

Greg's boys were impish and boisterous and affectionate; they were like boys everywhere. Toby lived for football, and Samuel for spaceships. When John first knew them, it had been dinosaurs and _Fireman Sam_.

On the night that Sherlock died, Greg had brought John home with him. They had cooked lasagne together, and sat on the small, crayon-covered sofa to eat it. The boys had been with a neighbour, but John had lain awake in a small twin bed under a blue coverlet patterned with planes and trains and boats. Beneath the fog of his grief, John had marvelled at the anachronism – steam engines and sailing ships and bi-planes with propellers for boys who went on holiday in 747s and rode the tube. There had been a book, optimistically entitled ' _Everything You Need to Know About the Universe'._ John had turned its pages for hours, unseeing, returning to the beginning every time he reached the end. At four o'clock in the morning, when he heard Greg stumble along the hall and turn on the shower, he had hurled the book across the room.


	2. Chapter 2

"So are you going to tell me?" Greg asked, at last.

It was easy to talk, like this. No eye contact necessary, a gentle remove of lines and weed-scattered water between them.

Greg twitched his line smoothly sideways to avoid snagging it; his eyes followed the fly as it bobbed and spun. He did not look at John, but played the line gently against the current. The feathers of the fly were iridescent blue.

"What do you want me to say?" John asked.

"You could start by telling me what's going on with you and Mary."

John exhaled. There was a snarl of line in his hands, and his blunt fingers worked steadily, patiently teasing apart the tangle. At last the knot was released and he paid the line out before him, letting the current carry it downstream.

"There's nothing going on," he said.

Greg cast him a quick, sideways look.

"No, I mean it. There's nothing. Just… nothing."

"You haven't seen her." It was a statement, not a question.

"Not since I moved back into Baker Street."

"What happened, John?" Greg asked softly.

John closed his eyes for a moment, drawing in a breath.

"She lied to me," he said at last. "She's not the person I thought she was."

Greg was silent for awhile, treating this with the weight it deserved.

"Nobody is, John. Not once you marry them. You never see the whole person."

There was no bitterness in Greg's tone, only resignation. John shook his head.

"It's more than that," he said. "It's not just that she's different from my expectations. I mean she actually _is_ someone else; a different person. She lied to me about all of it."

"What exactly are we talking about here?" Greg asked slowly. "D'you mean 'pretending she grew up in London when really it's Croydon', or d'you mean 'fake-identity' kind of different?"

John looked away. "You know I wouldn't tell you that, even if it were true."

Greg was quiet again, digesting this. A fish took his line; it tugged and bobbed, but the fish slipped from the hook as he tried to reel it in. Patiently, he drew his line back and cast again, the reel singing as it spun.

"And it's bad enough that you won't see her?" he asked at last.

"I can't forgive her," John said baldly. The lines around his mouth jerked in a rictus of anger– tight, and quickly concealed. He did not look at Greg. His eyes were fixed intently on a yellowed leaf, spinning among the rocks beside the bank.

Greg asked the obvious question:

"Is this about Sherlock?"

John gave a short, humourless laugh.

"Isn't it always?" he said. "Every girlfriend I've had. Every damn one. "

.

"What will you do?" Greg asked, after awhile.

John exhaled. His eyes were fixed on the water. Light was refracted by the surface, changing the angle of his line at the point where they met.

"Apply for a divorce," he said bluntly. "Only thing I _can_ do. And then as soon as the baby's born I'll claim custody. She won't fight me. Or if she does, she won't win. She knows I've got enough on her to take her down if she pushes."

His voice was grim in his own ears. He couldn't see Greg's face, but he knew that he was frowning. Greg's marriage had taken place when he was twenty-two years old and, to the best of John's knowledge, he had spent the better part of two decades fighting stubbornly to keep it.

"Are you sure, John? That's a hell of a step to take."

John could hear the worry in his voice, the lingering censure in his tentative phrasing.

" _You're_ doing it," he said.

Greg sighed. He scrubbed a hand over his face, looking weary.

"I'm not going to win, John. I'll get weekends. Alternate weekends from now until they're eighteen. Maybe the odd holiday, if I'm lucky."

"You can't know that."

"Yeah I can. No family court is going to let me keep the kids in London when their mum can offer a stable home and regular hours in the sodding lake district – even if it is at some kooky bloody artists' retreat." He looked away. "I spend half my life at the Met and the other half in the morgue – when I'm not too busy raiding crack dens or hanging about under bridges. Either way the hours are rubbish for kids."

As his line drifted into a patch of light, Greg realised that he'd lost his fly. Cursing, he reeled it in. Pendulum-like, the hook and sinker swung towards him, the line shedding droplets of water that flashed in the sunlight. He tied the new fly and cast with unusual violence.

"How can you be so sure you'd get custody?" he continued, abruptly. "There are things she can use against you too, you know – the cases, the injuries, your bio-hazard of a flatmate."

John couldn't help his slight huff of laughter.

"And what would you do, even if you won? Raise a child at Baker Street? With _him_?"

His chin jerked upstream in the direction that Sherlock had taken. John stuck his own chin out in prophetic defiance.

"He'll do what I bloody well tell him. He doesn't have to like it."

"Yeah… it wasn't actually him I was worried about, you know."

John looked half-sheepish, but still determined.

"Look, I don't care what he says about kids – that he hates them, or he's not fit to care for them or whatever. That's crap. He's just as capable as he wants to be. I'm not asking him to raise my child. Hell, I'm not even going to let him babysit. But I refuse to believe that he can't keep the explosions and the killers and the bloody drugs under control if he has to."

Greg frowned. "Even so, it's a hell of a big thing to spring on a bloke who's barely house-trained himself."

"You don't get it," John said, with a shake of his head. "It _is_ a big ask, I know it is. But he'll do it, Greg. He'll do it for me. Because he turns out to be the only damn person in the whole world who I trust enough to try. And fuck-only knows what that says about my psyche, so please don't try to psychoanalyse!"

Oddly enough, Greg mused, this was probably accurate. Sherlock would do anything for John; John would do anything for Sherlock. Ergo, if what needed to be done was rearing a child to adulthood without any of the three suffering grievous bodily harm, then that was probably what they'd do.

It didn't stop him from having several very serious reservations.

"I know you've got your reasons," he said quietly. "I don't _understand_ , but I get that there has to be something I'm not seeing. But John… raising kids is _hard._ You don't know how hard yet. And to do that on your own…"

John turned his head and looked Greg directly in the eye for the first time since the conversation had begun.

"You manage it," he said.

Greg let out a breath, running a hand through his hair in exasperation. "I'm not on my own, John."

"Please. You've been raising those kids solo for the past three years. Don't even try to deny it."

"I have _not,_ " Greg told him, unreasonably nettled by the accusation. "I know Annie hasn't been around much, and yes, I'm pissed at her for that, but she's still their mum. She still goes to their school plays and drives them to scout camps and whatever. Yeah, she's not home much, but when she _is_ there she's –" He waved his free hand in an exasperated manner; "I dunno – nagging me to buy organic breakfast cereal and force-feeding them kale smoothies and crap like that. Point is, she's still _there._ And even with that, there are days I can't cope. Not to put too fine a point on it, mate, but I've got resources you haven't. I've got a brother, two sisters, my parents, Annie's parents, and obliging next-door neighbours. You've got Mrs H., genius-boy, and a sister who's even less trustworthy than he is."

John's eyes flickered a little, acknowledging the point, but he deflected the issue with forced archness:

"You mean you won't babysit for me?"

Greg shot him a wry smile. "You know I will. When we're not both off chasing maniacs. And you know I'm not saying it to knock you. It's just… deciding to cut your kid's mum out of their life may not be exactly a walk in the park."

"I know that," John said. His mouth twitched. "But you're reckoning without my genius plan. I figure that any kid of mine has to be pretty fucking gorgeous, right?" (He ignored Greg's snort of disbelief). "And women _love_ helping out a poor, clueless solo dad. I'll take the baby round the yard, introduce it to all your pretty young constables, and I guarantee within a week I'll have them begging me to let them babysit."

Greg spluttered with outraged laughter.

"You wish, John!"

"No, really. This'll work. I'll probably even get sex out of it if they feel sorry enough for me."

"You are a sad pathetic old man, and there is not a chance in hell that that plan will actually work. And you are _not_ shagging my staff."

John shrugged, and grinned.

"Well, I know heaps of other women… Sarah, and Molly, and Jeanette…"

"Ok, number one, using your kid to seduce your boss is never going to be a good plan; and it's an even less good plan if she also happens to be your wife's boss. Number two, Molly does _not_ need exposure to babies, kittens, or anything remotely cute or fluffy unless you actively _want_ to turn her into a melting pile of goo. Number three: _Jeanette?_ You do remember how that ended, right? You are out of your tiny mind."

"Yeah, ok, so maybe not Jeanette."

Greg snorted.

"There's Clara…"

"Used to be married to your sister. No."

"Louise..."

"Lives in Dartmoor."

"Anthea…"

"You'd be brutally murdered and I'd never find your body."

"Sally..."

"You'd be brutally murdered and I'd be _hiding_ your body."

"Well, how 'bout Janine then? She likes kids. She must do – she dated Sherlock."

"Yeah, that still creeps me out a little actually…"

"You didn't see it. It was weird. Weird as fuck. Beyond weird…"

Greg didn't answer. He had turned to grin back at John over his shoulder, but the expression froze on his face.

Behind them, where the curve of the stream emerged from behind a green hillock, a pale shape had swept into sudden, terrifying view.

.

" _Shit!_ "

John was already in motion. His rod hit the bank and lodged in a stand of thistles, the line snarled amongst the rocks. Greg's landed atop it, flexing with the force, and they sprang and rolled back towards the stream. Neither man saw where they landed. They were already running, fighting against the current, stumbling in heavy, water-filled boots.

Upstream of them, Sherlock lay in the water, unmoving. Even at that distance, the tangle of his dark hair was obvious. He was lying face-down.

The toe of Greg's boot caught beneath a rock and he staggered, but didn't fall. Running against the stream was too _slow._ John had already worked it out, was stumbling for the bank, and Greg swore at the seconds his brain took to catch up. They gained the bank, and then they were running in earnest, dodging tree roots and branches, feet skidding in the muddy grass.

The stream swept Sherlock towards them, his body bobbing slightly over the ripples. Their eyes flickered madly, focus narrowing to two points: path – target – path – target.

 _A slippery patch of bare earth requiring a lengthened stride to reach over it._

A flash of white torso; a protruding spine.

 _Rocks that could turn an ankle if your footing slipped._

Grey-striped pyjama pants; long arms splayed forward.

John drew level with Sherlock before Greg did. He plunged from the bank back into the water, choking on an inarticulate cry. The stream was deeper here, green-black and heavy shadowed. The water closed over their chests as they struck out from the bank, with a shock of cold that took their breath away. Sherlock's body was sweeping towards them, faster than Greg had anticipated, and for a moment he was terrified that they wouldn't reach it in time.

With something like a snarl, John lunged forward.

.

Sherlock's body hit them with surprising force. More by luck than judgement, Greg managed to snag him by the jaw and wrench his face up out of the water. Then several things happened simultaneously. John, with a show of astonishing strength, caught Sherlock about the torso and flipped him bodily into his arms; Sherlock, rather unexpectedly, snapped into sudden, vociferous life, his long limbs thrashing wildly; Greg just had time to see a pair of shocked and affronted grey eyes looking back at him before one of Sherlock's flailing feet caught him in the solar-plexus. Greg went down, releasing a trail of silvery bubbles and gasping in a lungful of turbid water. John, out of his depth and with his arms suddenly full of a writhing, slippery consulting-detective, went down too, and one of Sherlock's knees caught him a solid blow to the testicles. They surfaced, yelping and spluttering and being thrown against one another by the force of the current. Water was streaming from Greg's nose and John was gasping in agony, tears of pain starting in his eyes.

" _Fuck,_ " he managed, before doubling over, clutching at his wounded groin. As he was still in six feet of turbulent water, this caused him to pitch untidily forwards until his head went under again.

Sherlock got an arm around John's chest and hauled him upright, striking out for the bank. John collapsed into his hold, whining pitifully.

"What… the fuck… were you doing?" Greg demanded.

Sherlock stared. "What was _I_ doing? What were _you_ doing? Fancied a little riverine frolic, did you?" His air of arch condescension might have been more effective had he not had been dressed in pyjama pants and executing a lopsided dog-paddle with John tucked beneath his arm.

"Trying to rescue… your... ungrateful bloody… arse." John wheezed.

Sherlock's eyes twinkled.

"I was conducting an experiment," he said. "I was examining the influence of environmental conditions on my ability to hold my breath. Never know when it might come in useful in escaping someone."

Greg gaped at him. "Oh you _bloody_ tosser."

Sherlock grinned. Greg's mouth twitched at the corners. Irresistibly, the laughter bubbled up, Sherlock's sniggers and Greg's rich chuckle, until even John was giggling with every gasping breath.

 _"One day… Sherlock Holmes… I am going to… fucking… kill you."_


	3. Chapter 3

They waded ashore, weighed down by their sodden clothes. John's woollen jumper was hanging almost to his knees, Greg's jeans were sliding down his arse, and Sherlock looked like a cross between a wet cat and one of the more spectacularly asinine Byronic heroes.

"Bloody fuck it's cold," Greg gasped. "How are you possibly not freezing, you madman?"

Sherlock shrugged. "I've been in Tibet."

"Yeah, smartarse, but I'm pretty sure you didn't have a bullet hole in your chest at the time."

At that, John gave a yelp of tortured conscience. "Christ, Sherlock! Your stitches!"

.

John made Sherlock sit while he looked him over. Hastily, Greg laid fresh kindling in the ashes of the morning's fire. Scavenging wood from beneath the willows, he built it up as rapidly as he could, until it bore more resemblance to a bonfire than to the tidy cooking fire of the morning.

John stripped the sodden remnants of the dressing from Sherlock's chest and ran his eyes carefully down the scar. The incision cut by the surgeons had been hurried, and not dainty, but the resulting row of stitches was neat and orderly. John's thumbs probed the scar, seeking heat or inflammation, or needlework damaged by Sherlock's disregard.

Out of the corner of his eye, Greg watched them. John's fingers pressed forcefully into the indentations between Sherlock's ribs – he was angry, Greg could tell. But the movement of his thumbs over the silvery, newly-knit skin was unutterably tender. John's head was bent, but even so, Sherlock's eyes rested on him – on his dripping hair, his lowered eyelashes, the plane of his cheek. There was something very soft in Sherlock's expression; something that sat strangely on that strange face, habitually so austere and manic by turns.

With the application of antiseptic and a new dressing, John pronounced himself satisfied. The fire was now head-high, spitting and crackling merrily and giving off a luxurious heat. John and Greg divested themselves of their wet clothes, wringing them out as well as they were able and draping them over branches near the fire. Sherlock, predictably enough, merely shucked his pyjama trousers and left them lying in a sodden pile on the grass. Sighing, John retrieved them and spread them out to dry over a large fallen log.

A person's choice in underwear, John had always thought, was very revealing of character. His own were plain, practical cotton boxers: loose fitting, comfortable, blue and white check. Sherlock's were black, bamboo and merino blend (as John knew well, since he frequently ended up washing them), and snug-fitting in a way that should probably have been more perturbing than it was. Greg's, it transpired, were blue – and patterned with a cheerful motif of monkeys and bananas. John stared.

Greg shrugged. "Christmas present from my son."

Sherlock arched a brow, his mouth twitching perceptibly.

"Bananas, Lestrade? Really?"

"Hey, they're better than the pair that says _'Police line, do not cross'_."

"I'm assuming that was also your son rather than your wife?"

"Yeah. Cheeky bugger. I got him back though. Got him Barbie undies for his last birthday. Made him open them in front of his mates and everything."

John grinned. "You must be the coolest Dad."

"Are you kidding? I'm so uncool they won't even walk through the supermarket with me."

"With underpants like that, I'm astounded you could convince anybody to procreate with you in the first place."

"Yeah, oddly enough I wasn't exactly looking to score when I packed for this weekend, Sherlock."

"Hear that, John? Your honour is safe."

"Oh, sod off."

John had made the mistake of trying to remove his jeans over top of his boots. He'd managed to extricate his left foot, but the right was still woefully entangled. He performed a curious, half-hopping manoeuvre, bent over and tugging at the heel of his boot with both hands. Unfortunately, he had not taken into account the vulnerabilities engendered by this position. Sherlock took full advantage. With a puckish light in his eye, he sauntered over and slapped John soundly on the arse.

John yelped and overbalanced, but managed to drop his shoulder and roll, toppling harmlessly into the grass. His boot came off in his hand, and he wasted no time in hurling it at Sherlock. Sherlock ducked, giggling, and danced a few steps sideways to slap Greg's banana-covered posterior. Greg let out a bellow of mock-rage and pursued him, Sherlock dodging and darting, giggling immoderately. As they rounded the bonfire, John sprang up to intercept them. Caught between the two of them, Sherlock tried to fake a lunge sideways, but John anticipated it. Catching him in an effortless tackle, he brought him down, twisting easily as he did so to ensure that Sherlock landed safely across his stomach.

Logic dictated that at this point, John should hold Sherlock down while Greg inflicted dire retribution on him on behalf of their slighted honour. Instead, Greg took advantage of the others' preoccupation in order to roll them sideways and spank them both simultaneously. At this unlooked-for duplicity, John gave a yell of betrayal and swiped at Greg's ankles; Greg jumped backwards out of range, laughing uproariously. Allied once more, John and Sherlock scrambled to their feet and pursued him, hurling threats and imprecations.

They chased each other in rings around the bonfire until it became almost a dance. Sherlock began war-whooping like a schoolboy, and the others joined in, laughing until they cried. At last, Sherlock was obliged by his injury to bow out. He doubled over, fending off advances with one hand while massaging his chest with the other; but his eyes were still glinting delightedly, and his giggles continued unabated.

"No more," he panted. "Mercy… I beg of you…"

John caught him around the chest, pulled him in, and slapped him.

"Now we're even," he said.

.

* * *

The circle of firelight glowed more brightly as the afternoon waned softly towards dusk. Following their impromptu reversion to adolescence they had subsided into a lazy and unobtrusive solidarity, disrupted only when John or Greg rose to put more wood on the fire. Greg was reading _Men at Arms,_ his face towards the fire and his back resting against a conveniently fallen tree. Sherlock, for reasons best known to himself, was lying on his back with his feet on the log alongside Greg's face. He was perusing half a dozen copies simultaneously of what appeared to be _Punch,_ muttering obscurely to himself and making abrupt, eloquent gestures with his hands as he did so. John was drafting something in a battered yellow notebook. His head turned occasionally to look at Sherlock, as if for inspiration. His eyes lingered fondly on the impetuous movement of Sherlock's hands, and a smile touched the corner of his mouth; he seemed to be entirely unconscious of it.

Dusk drew in and the first pale stars appeared. The shadows of trees and hills drew out, long and thin over the fields. The fire spat, and sparks fountained up, spiralling skywards on a long column of smoke. It began to grow cold.

Greg disappeared for awhile, and returned with a couple of sleeping bags, a bottle of scotch, and jackets for the three of them – John's zippered fleece; a grey merino-knit jumper that Sherlock almost never wore; and, for himself, a navy blue sports jacket that boldly and implausibly proclaimed his allegiance to the Kelston High School Girls' Junior XI. John decided, upon reflection, that he was probably a coach.

"Do you want to eat?" John asked, eventually.

Greg gave a low hum of approval. He yawned, stretching his arms above his head and rolling them until his shoulders clicked.

"I suppose this is about the point where we should cook something well-balanced and nutritious," he said, still yawning.

"Mm."

"Or, we could just chuck some steaks on the fire and char the hell out of them."

"Yeah."

.

They ate the steaks with the aid of John's pocket knife. The juice ran down their wrists, and they burned their fingers, and the meat tasted of charcoal and wood-smoke. Sherlock professed to have little appetite, but he kept them company, munching quietly on a green apple and tearing occasional fastidious fragments from John's steak between thumb and forefingers.

.

By the time John and Greg had finished eating, Sherlock was already half-asleep. His long legs were stretched out, his hands lay palm-upward on the ground beside him, and his head was tilted back at an impossible angle against the fallen tree.

"Comfy?" John asked.

"Mm." Sherlock murmured. His pale throat flexed softly where it lay exposed. "Could use a pillow." His voice was already soft with sleep.

"They're in the tent," John told him. "Bring mine while you're at it."

"Mm."

Sherlock hummed sleepily, his voice reverberating low in his chest. Without opening his eyes, he canted slowly sideways, until he came to rest with his head leaning against John's shoulder. John huffed, and nudged him in the belly with his elbow. Sherlock only smiled.

.

There was something boyishly ridiculous about the whole situation, John thought fondly. Three grown men sitting around a campfire, passing a bottle back and forth, and wearing jackets and sleeping bags over still-damp underwear. He felt warm and content, and not inclined to quibble with Sherlock over modest liberties. Affectionately, he eyed his friend. He had to tilt his neck awkwardly sideways in order to see Sherlock's face; the detective made a small noise of protest at being jostled, though John's being incommoded clearly didn't concern him. He looked smug and self-possessed, even while pretending to be asleep.

Despite the obvious exhaustion, Sherlock looked better than he had in a long while. His forehead was clear and dry, and there was a touch of colour in his cheeks. Where they peeked from the neck of his jumper, his thin clavicles rose and fell with reassuring constancy.

John became aware that Greg had fallen silent and was watching them. Feeling the abrupt need to disprove whatever it was Greg thought he knew, John let his face contort into the exaggerated doctor's scowl that he used with children. He fitted his thumb and forefingers brusquely beneath Sherlock's jaw in a show of checking his glands, then moved briskly to check the pulse in his carotid.

From the way Greg's eyebrows rose, John wondered if he might not have just overplayed his hand.

.

By a process of gradual acquisition, Sherlock slid down the fleece-covered shoulder until his head was, if not quite in John's lap, at least resting openly against his thigh. Rather to Greg's surprise, John didn't push him away, but brought his hand to rest on his friend's shoulder. He glanced at Greg, slightly self-conscious, as if aware that the gesture wasn't entirely masculine, but he let his hand remain.

It occurred to Greg, quite suddenly and strangely, that John and Sherlock were probably in love with each other.

It was a surprising thought. For almost six years now, Greg, like everyone else, had had a tenner on against the day that Sherlock and John turned out to be shagging. The odds had grown longer as the years had passed, but the pool had never quite gone away.

That wasn't what this was though. It wasn't just John, bright-eyed with admiration, and Sherlock basking gleefully in his regard; it wasn't just their old, comfortable, eminently jest-worthy bromance (Sally's word). _This_ was something very different: a sort of shy, half-desperate tenderness that made Greg's throat constrict. Love – proper love; the real thing.

Trust the two of them not to realise it until after John was married.

John offered the scotch bottle, and Greg accepted it and drank. They weren't drinking to get drunk – just sharing companionable passes back and forth, small sips to stave off the chill.

Greg felt, idly, that he would like a cigarette. A cigarette would go well with the scotch and the bonfire. The fierce sweet smell of smoke, the glow of ash – they seemed to fit the scene. But no – there was no sense in wasting eight months of tenuous progress. Besides, John would not approve.

He remembered, suddenly, the way Sherlock had stood at John's shoulder, right throughout the wedding. His hand had rested between John's shoulder blades in the moment before the rings were exchanged.

Greg tilted the scotch towards John again, and John took it from him one-handed. He drank, and the bottle left a trickle of condensation over his mouth and chin; he wiped it with the ball of his thumb. John lowered the bottle loosely by the neck and rested it against his thigh, close to Sherlock's head. The detective's hair had dried in an impossible tangle and there was a streak of ash on his chin. From a distance, Greg couldn't tell if he was asleep or only pretending.

John glanced up at Greg, his mouth quirked and his ever-mobile brows pitched cheekily. There was enquiry in his glance, but he looked happy. He looked like he had almost six years ago.

 _God,_ Greg thought. The poor bastards. The poor, poor bastards. They really had buggered this one up, six ways to Sunday and all.

.

* * *

It had just gone midnight when John woke. His neck twinged from the awkward angle at which it had lain against the tree trunk. His back and shoulders ached, and his arse was numb. The fire had died, or had been put out by somebody, and cold dew covered his sleeping bag. Greg was asleep beside him, but Sherlock had clearly crawled off towards the superior warmth and comfort of the tent. John felt a moment's evil impulse against the bastard for not having bothered to wake them.

Swearing, he shrugged off the damp sleeping bag and staggered upright. His lower half, he noted blearily, was still dressed only in underpants. The grass was freezing beneath his bare feet. It felt as though there might be a frost coming.

John shrugged the sleeping bag around himself and shook Greg roughly by the shoulder.

"Come on," he said. "You're too damn old to lie around in fields all night."

Greg moaned. "I'm too damn old to get up either."

But he shrugged himself to his feet and staggered untidily after John.

As predicted, Sherlock was sleeping like a baby, stretched lazily across the very centre of the tent, and inextricably cocooned in the only dry bedding. Sighing, John hefted a sprawling arm out of the way and clambered over into the small space between his flatmate's outflung leg and the tent wall. Greg wormed himself in on Sherlock's other side, thankful that his pillow, at least, had escaped appropriation.

"'Night John," he mumbled, hazily.

"G'night Greg."


	4. Chapter 4

_Author's Note: Thanks to the lovely, un-logged in reviewer of a few days ago who reminded me that this story existed and prompted me to update it. It's always a bit discouraging when there are fewer reviews than there are chapters, but you made the scoreboard draw even. Cheers. :-)_

 _._

* * *

Greg woke again some time in the early hours of the morning. It had been a noise that woke him – strained breathing and a stifled grunt of pain: Sherlock, he realised foggily.

John was already awake, his innate Sherlock-gauge better attuned than Greg's own. His shadow could be dimly seen, scrambling into a kneeling position as he fumbled for a light. The blue glow of a phone screen lit up, a glancing sweep across the wall of the tent. John was shielding the light with his palm.

"You ok?" he whispered. His hand found Sherlock's arm.

"Sorry." Sherlock's voice was low and rough. "Bit of pain. Didn't mean to wake you."

"You want your painkillers?"

"If you can find them." The breath hissed between his teeth. "Think they're somewhere in the corner."

"Yeah," John said softly. "I put them with my stuff. Hang on."

He turned away and rummaged in the corner where a few small bags were stowed. By the light of the phone, Greg saw that Sherlock's hand come up to rest on his upper arm, in the place where John's had lain.

"Can you sit up?" John asked. For answer, Sherlock propped himself on his elbows and struggled into a semi-vertical position. Without saying anything, John moved around until his chest was at Sherlock's back, his right hand supporting him between the shoulder blades. He leaned forward to pass Sherlock a small water bottle, and popped a couple of tablets into his hand with a crinkle of foil.

"God, you're a daft bugger," John muttered. "I told you you were overdoing it today."

"It was the sight of you poncing around in your boxer shorts," Sherlock said, seriously. "I couldn't help myself."

John snorted. "Christ, don't let Greg hear you say that. He's already convinced that we're arse over tit for one another as it is."

"Yes, well…" Sherlock said drily. "I rather doubt that he needs my help in that regard."

And wasn't _that_ a cryptic non-answer, Greg thought. He wondered if Sherlock knew he was awake. Even distracted by pain, it seemed impossible that he'd failed to notice it.

"In any case, I don't think you did warn me, you know. Unless it was the Sherlock in your head to whom you talk when I'm not actually there."

"Arse," John retorted. "Did you know that you still do that, by the way?"

"What, talk to you when you're not there?"

"Yes."

"Necessity, John." Sherlock's voice was soft. "You are so frequently absent, now."

In the silence that followed this remark, Greg heard the stricken intake of John's breath. He couldn't see either man's face, but he saw the sudden stillness of John's head, the rigid set of his shoulders, and he knew that the blow had hit home.

"Not any more." John's whisper was low and fierce. Greg thought his fist had tightened in the fabric of Sherlock's shirt. "That's over. That's done."

With a guilt that was almost like panic, Greg wondered why they were talking about this _now_. Fascinated as he was by the relationship between his friends, this was one conversation that he desperately did not want to hear. He wanted to move, to say something – anything to make it obvious that they were being overheard – yet he was paralysed by the very tension of the silence.

It was Sherlock who broke the impasse.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "That was unfair."

The tension left John's posture by slow millimetres and he slumped forward with a sigh. His head fell; his brow butted gently against Sherlock's crown.

"I probably deserved it," he said.

The tent was filled with the sound of their soft breathing. A cricket chirped outside in the darkness; once, twice.

When John spoke again, it was with a return to his usual tone:

"Do you want to lie back down?"

Sherlock swallowed. "Please."

The bedding rustled and blurred shapes moved in the darkness. Sherlock gave a slight hiss of pain as the movement jarred him, but otherwise the manoeuvre was carried out comfortably enough. John remained sitting, his knees raised in front of his chest and his forearms resting on them. His silhouette looked hunched and distorted in the grey darkness.

It was quiet then, for a long while. Greg rolled back and forth several times, thankful that his friends' impromptu confrontation appeared to be over, but unable to get comfortable. Sherlock's breath was soft and slightly irregular. John's hunched figure threw a sad shadow on the wall.

After awhile, John spoke.

"How are you feeling?"

Sherlock exhaled, sounding pained. "Honestly? There are moments when I really rather hate your wife."

The apparent non-sequitur surprised Greg. As far as he knew, Sherlock and Mary had always got on well. Remarkably well, given everything. And while there was a certain lightness in Sherlock's tone, it wasn't entirely clear to him whether or not he was joking. John's answer, though, left him in no doubt.

"Not as much as I do, believe me."

The rage, the sheer viciousness in John's voice shocked him. It was a tone of voice that sent all of his police instincts into high alert; a tone that reminded him in no unforceful terms that, beneath the cuddly exterior, John Watson could _kill_. He stirred uneasily, wondering if he should try to intervene, but Sherlock seemed already to have reached the same conclusion.

" _Easy_ ," he said softly. His hand reached out to touch John's back. "You know I didn't mean it."

"No," John said. "But I do."

Once again, a silence fell. Greg didn't understand what he had heard at all – how John had gone in the space of minutes from asking how Sherlock felt to that cold, implacable hatred. Once again, he thought that Sherlock had to know he was awake; and if that were the case, there must have been something that Sherlock wanted him to hear. But _why?_ What could Mary Watson possibly have done that could divide John and Sherlock so starkly?

Sleep would not come. Greg turned over the conversation in his mind, trying to work out what it all meant. He did not think the others were sleeping. John, at least, still sat with his arms about his knees, though what he was thinking of, Greg didn't know.

It began to rain. Lightly at first, a gentle drumming on the tent fly, soothing and soporific. Gradually, the rain picked up until it was a genuine downpour, but still, it was pleasant. There was something immensely comfortable about lying in a tent, hearing the rain so close, secure in the knowledge that the tent was rated for snow, or sleet, or hail. He was on the verge of sleep, lulled by the rain, and it took him a moment to comprehend that John was speaking again.

"What would have happened?" he asked quietly. "If the shot had been higher; if the ambulance hadn't got there on time. What would have happened?"

"John…" Sherlock said, softly.

" _Tell me._ "

There was a slow, fuzzy movement in the darkness, just at the edge of Greg's vision. Sherlock's hand, he realised, still resting against the small of John's back.

"If the shot had been higher," Sherlock said, emotionlessly, "It is likely I would have been dead before you reached me. I haven't been able to discover exactly how much time elapsed between the time I was shot and the time you found me, but I estimate that it was rather less than two minutes, so there is a small possibility that I might not yet have entered cardiac arrest. In either case, your response would have been the same; you would have called the ambulance and endeavoured to resuscitate me. It is possible you would have remembered the defibrillator in the outer office, but if the shot had been any higher it would not have done you much good. I would have died – there, or in the ambulance, or in surgery. If the ambulance had been later arriving, the result would have been the same."

Sherlock paused.

"A red flag appeared in Mycroft's surveillance records the moment you and I entered Magnusson's office. Mycroft, in your scenario, would have done precisely as he did in fact: verify that Mary was not where her alibi said she should be, deduce where she had gone, and pull up every scrap of surveillance he had in the vicinity. It is possible that he knew I had been shot even before you did; I haven't asked him. Either he sent the ambulance himself, or, when the call came – Mary's or yours – he re-directed everything to ensure its priority. In the scenario you have given me, it would still have been too late."

Sherlock paused again. The sound of the rain was incongruously gentle in the space between his words.

"You would never have seen your wife again," he said, simply. "If he were feeling merciful, Mycroft would have waited until the child was delivered before he killed her. I rather think that he would have undertaken it personally."

John gave a dry, stifled sob.

"Afterwards, Mycroft would have told you what had happened; he would have told you the truth. He would then have expended whatever effort was necessary, for as long as it took, to prevent you from putting a bullet in your brain."

.

The silence in the tent was absolute. The rain still drummed on the canvas, but Greg scarcely heard it. John had curled in on himself, his head pressed onto his knees. Greg thought he might have been crying.

Greg's mind was racing. _This_ was what Sherlock had wanted him to know. _This_ was what had had John tearing himself inside out for the past three months.

Sherlock had been shot in the chest, at point-blank range, by Mary Watson. By his best friend's wife.

" _Christ,_ " John muttered, thickly.

The dark shape that was John shifted softly. Fabric rustled, and there was a long exhale of breath. Greg rather thought he might have been wiping his eyes on his sleeve. Then, to his complete bewilderment, John gave a short, choked laugh.

"Remind me not to ask you for a bedtime story anytime soon."

Sherlock gave a low chuckle. John made an abrupt, convulsive movement, as if he had grasped his friend's arm.

"First thing I do when we get home is go and buy your surgeons a bar tab. And then I'm taking your brother out for a drink. If he somehow made that ambulance get there even a minute faster, he deserves it.'

Sherlock laughed quietly.

"Offering to buy Mycroft a drink would probably give him a stroke," he said drily. "But then, in the time you've known him, you've turned him into a frequenter of cafes and a habitué of pizza parlours, so I suppose all things are possible."

.

* * *

It had taken them all a long time to fall asleep after that. Sherlock had lain in the darkness, quiescent, listening to John's hitched breathing and to Lestrade's, no less troubled, behind him. He had pretended not to notice the way Lestrade shuffled in his sleeping bag, rolling back and forth in time with John's stilted breaths. He had pretended not to notice the way John's hands trembled, clenching and unclenching in Sherlock's pillow.

He must have slept, though he didn't remember it. He woke rather after dawn – some time between 7.45 and 8.00, he thought, though it was difficult to tell through the tent. The canvas over their heads diffused the light, throwing it back warm and rich and yellow. Lestrade was gone – fishing again, Sherlock presumed. But he'd let John sleep, because John had been tired. No – not only that. Because he hadn't known how to face him.

Sherlock rolled his head sideways, hearing vertebrae crack as he turned. He was lying flat on his back, hands across his belly. He preferred sleeping on his front but that, thanks to Mary, was not currently an option.

John was lying beside him, curled on his side. His head was tucked down towards his chest, his arms, stacked one atop the other, were raised in front of his face. The fingers of John's left hand lay loosely against Sherlock's shoulder.

Often, when they slept side by side, they touched in some way. A hand resting curled against a shoulder blade; a knee nudging the back of a thigh. There was no reason to find this odd. It was in fact a probable outcome, given the amount of movement undergone in an average sleep cycle and the increased likelihood of contact at close quarters.

In the sorts of terrible novels that Molly Hooper read, people often woke up wrapped in each other's arms. This was more than a little unlikely. Humans were essentially selfish, and lying with your arm pinned beneath a human torso for an extended period of time was unlikely to prove comfortable. Molly would tell him that people can bear a little discomfort for the sake of love, but she would be wrong. You could not blame humanity for that; organisms that worked primarily to their own advantage were those which succeeded; it was the very essence of natural selection. In sleep or unconsciousness, the mind would always select the wellbeing of the body over extended discomfort and circulatory problems.

No; he preferred this. The twitch of John's fingers against his shoulder; the nudge of John's foot against his calf. It was likely, Sherlock thought wryly, that this was the closest to waking in someone's arms that he would ever get.

For the first time, the thought occurred to him that it might have been a mistake to let Lestrade find out about Mary. Lestrade might feel obliged to investigate. Sherlock seldom bothered with legal niceties, but Lestrade was frustratingly hesitant about disregarding them. But balanced against that was the fact that Lestrade had needed to know before he could be of any use. Lestrade cared about John – and John needed people to care.

John stirred a little, twisting his lower half so that his hips were flat against the ground. His foot lost contact with Sherlock's leg as he moved, but his knee came up until it touched Sherlock's own. John wasn't asleep, just dozing. He often dozed when there was no immediate need to get up. His brows crinkled a little, and he made a small snuffling noise. Sherlock was careful not to smile.

For several minutes, John dozed. Sherlock lay still, watching the pattern of light on the roof of the tent. At the edges of the shadowed patches, the shapes of leaves could be distinguished – three distinct species. _Castinea sativa,_ _Alnus glutinosa, Betula pendula;_ chestnut, alder, birch. The leaves were already starting to fall.

Normally, Sherlock would be up by now. Much as he liked John, he was uninteresting when not awake. That was another thing that Molly's silly books got wrong. Watching people sleep was tedious, and the only data to be gained from it related to the capacity of pillows to accumulate saliva. Saliva was dull.

Normally, Sherlock would have got up and done something useful with his morning. Just now, however, he had been forced to accept that being shot was painful, and that the pain was not in the least eased by thrashing around in rivers. Lying still seemed like a better bet, just at present.

In a spirit of scientific curiosity, Sherlock reached an arm out of his sleeping bag and poked John, very delicately, in the abdomen. John didn't stir.

Sherlock poked him a little harder.

When that also failed to elicit a response, he shuffled forward on his pillow and blew gently in John's face.

In response, John's eyes screwed themselves more tightly shut, and his brows drew down until they scrunched in the middle. He blinked his eyes open and, from a distance of four inches away, found Sherlock looking back at him. He yelped.

"Jesus, I wish you wouldn't do that!"

Sherlock was already sniggering.

"Oh yeah, really mature, Sherlock."

Sherlock sniggered more loudly.

"You're a bloody menace," John huffed, tugging on the edge of his sleeping bag. He pulled it up over his head and crossed his arms over top of it. His voice emerged in a muffled groan

"Go back to sleep."

In answer, Sherlock insinuated a long-fingered hand inside John's sleeping bag, and began to tickle his nose.

"Stop that!"

"I mean it."

"Stop it, or I'll bite you."

John snapped ineffectually at Sherlock's fingers, trying to trap the invading wrist between his folded forearms. Sherlock fought back, jabbing his free hand beneath John's ribs until John was wheezing with laughter.

"Bored, John."

"So get – get up – you idiot."

"Boring."

John choked in a laughing breath, and managed to fight his way out of his sleeping bag. He grabbed Sherlock's wrists and forced his hands away from his sides; Sherlock over-balanced and tipped forward on top of him. His hard skull hit John in the solar-plexus and forced the air out of him.

"O-ow!"

"Your… fault… idiot."

"You started it!"

"You were boring."

"I was asleep!"

"You're boring when you're asleep."

"Right. That's it!"

John wrestled Sherlock's arms up over his head and locked his legs with a well-placed knee. He rolled them, forcing Sherlock back over onto his own mattress, and came to rest with his knees either side of Sherlock's hips. Sherlock looked up at him, panting, arms stretched up over his head and tendons straining against John's hold. His eyes glinted wickedly.

"You see John," he said in a conversational tone, " _T_ _his_ is why people talk."


	5. Chapter 5

The night's rain had trailed off into a misty drizzle by the time Greg managed to get himself out of the tent and into the stream. It was later than they'd managed the previous morning and the sky was paling rapidly, but it was still dark and cool beneath the trees. A fish jumped, somewhere in the darkness, and the sound of the splash echoed amongst the rocks. The mist lay heavy over the river.

Greg had shrugged on a scruffy oilskin over his jumper – old school maybe, but better than any modern, ultralight, silicon-impregnated thing. The mist condensed in beads on the oilskin's surface and lay thickly in his hair; droplets slipped down the neck of his shirt, and over the backs of his chilled hands.

Musingly, he tied the first fly and waded out into the stream. The first rush of cold water over the tops of his wellingtons woke him far more effectively than his usual morning coffee. He'd be lying if he claimed he'd slept much. The conversation he'd overheard between John and Sherlock had churned round in his head, refusing to be banished, until his brain was buzzing with tiredness. Greg cast the line out into the dark water and scowled viciously. He didn't know what the fuck to do.

Mary Watson had shot Sherlock Holmes. And Greg didn't know what to think about that.

He'd known Mary a couple of years now. She'd sat down beside him one evening when he'd been ordering drinks in a pub in Bexley. She'd flirted with him, and he'd brought her back to his table to meet the rest of the gang. John had been with them, tucked dismally in a corner, playing with the condensation on the outside of his glass. Mary had asked him who had died.

Mary wore bright lipstick and liked colourful clothes. She bit her lip with her mouth turned up at the corners when she was trying not to grin. She was small and curvy and– Greg thought privately – less pretty than some of John's other girlfriends. She had cheeky, trouble-maker's eyes and sometimes snorted when she laughed. She liked Sherlock.

It didn't make sense. Not just in the usual how-could-she-do-such-a-thing, no-one-ever-suspected kind of way. He was used to that. Those people always had _something_ about them – something that their friends and relatives tried to dismiss or make excuses for, but that rang all sorts of alarm bells in his own head. Mary had none of that. She could be dismissive or manipulative, a little cruel, but who couldn't be? He might have missed the signs on his own, sure, but there was no way on earth, absolutely no way, that Sherlock could have failed to notice.

He thought suddenly of a dinner party they'd had, a few weeks after John and Mary's wedding. Mary had been showing Molly photo albums, and Molly had been rapturous in her praise. Mary had been wry and trenchant as ever: "Thank god we got at least one photo where the groom and the best man weren't gazing lovingly into one another's eyes." He'd thought that she was joking, at the time, but now he wondered.

Christ, it didn't make _sense._ Greg was a homicide detective. Over the course of his career he'd encountered every reason there was for pulling a gun, and then some. And sure, he could make a case for provocation: Sherlock was the single most annoying arsehole on the face of the planet; show him a copper who _hadn't_ fantasised about shooting Sherlock Holmes and he'd show you a liar. And John, whatever he said, was head over heels for the tosser, which gave Mary more incentive than most. But it still didn't _fit._ Mary had known that before she married John, she'd _joked_ about it. So what in Christ's name could have happened to change all that?

There was a tug on Greg's line and, moodily, he reeled it in. A good-sized trout, fighting hard. Usually Greg would have enjoyed the struggle, enjoyed landing it with the maximum of flair, but today his heart wasn't in it. As soon as the fish was in close enough he swung it out and onto the bank. It fought, tail slapping against the grass, and he pinned it with a knee to stop it sliding back. He jammed his rod upright between a couple of rocks and drew the knife from his pocket. One-handed, he flicked it open, and slid it up behind the gills. The thrashing subsided to a shuddering twitch.

The blade, when he drew it out, was dark with blood and he wiped it neatly on the grass. Annie had always hated this part, he remembered. She had always shuddered and looked away, as if Greg were barbaric and the act itself obscene. On the one occasion she'd landed a fish of her own she'd stood vacillating on the bank, unable to strike the blow, while the fish had gasped and thrashed, ever more frantic and agonised, until Greg had yelled at her to "Just kill it, goddamn you". It was one of the only occasions in their marriage that he could remember having raised his voice.

If you could kill a fish, Greg had always thought, you could kill a person. The principle was the same.

If he was honest with himself, he didn't much like this part either.

* * *

By 6.30, the sky was beginning to lighten, the very edges of the mist starting to curl and burn away. Greg jammed the rod under his arm to blow on his chilled hands.

His fly had been dragged into the lee of a waterlogged and half-submerged tree trunk. He pulled it back and cast again, enjoying the whistle of the line. He wiggled his toes inside his wellingtons, trying to get some warmth back into his numb feet. He heard a fish jump; and then, a moment later, another. The ripples swelled outwards towards him, silvery in the early light.

He could hear the low thrum of an engine, loud against the quiet of the morning. It took him a while to realise that it was getting closer. He turned to watch as the vehicle drew off the gravel road and through the gate into the field. A sleek dark-green land rover, bouncing slightly over the grass. The driver cut the engine and it coasted to a halt next to their camp site, looking particularly glossy alongside the battered, beige-ish model that he'd borrowed from his brother.

The driver's door opened and a man stepped out, tall and spare and a little gangly-looking. He wore an old-fashioned tweed suit and a pair of brown leather boots with gaiters, and looked altogether as though he'd just stepped from the pages of _Rodd and Gunn_. Greg couldn't help the grin that tugged at the corners of his mouth.

Mycroft Holmes pocketed the land rover's keys and inclined his head solemnly in Greg's direction. He cast a half-glance in the direction of the tent, but instead began to pick a stately course down the bank towards the river. When he was within hailing distance, Greg raised a hand in acknowledgement.

"You're up early."

Mycroft gave a small smile. "I rather enjoy early morning drives."

Greg quirked an eyebrow at him, returning the smile.

"What are you doing here?"

Mycroft came to stand at the edge of the bank, his hands clasped behind his back. Raising himself on the balls of his feet, he looked down into the stream, directing his response to the water:

"I am also rather fond of fishing, as it happens."

It might have been Greg's imagination, but he thought there was a faint flush colouring Mycroft's cheeks. It was difficult to tell with him concentrating so carefully on the toes of his own boots.

There was something about Mycroft's posture that gave him pause. A slight awkwardness in the narrow set of his shoulders, a slight tension in the hands clasped politely behind his back. The tips of Mycroft's ears were faintly pink. With his eyes lowered, the sweep of dark lashes against his cheekbones resembled Sherlock's.

It struck him suddenly that Mycroft Holmes must be the loneliest man on the planet.

"Ehm, sorry," Greg offered, feebly. "I would've invited you if I'd known." It wasn't exactly the truth, but Mycroft had the grace not to call him out on it.

Mycroft's eyes flicked up towards him, polite and self-assured, for all their discomfort.

"I hope I'm not intruding?" he said, at the same time as Greg's awkward: "I just assumed you'd be busy I guess."

Mycroft smiled, a slight quirk with the left corner of his mouth.

Greg found himself smiling back, feeling his grim mood beginning to lift. Mycroft was a friend. An awkward one maybe; one you couldn't exactly play the lad or get drunk with, but a friend all the same.

"Grab your rod," he said. "Plenty of water for both of us."

* * *

"I'd like to ask you to forget about it, Inspector."

Mycroft's voice was low and precisely-modulated, his intonation very correct. Greg turned in surprise, the fly he had been tying forgotten.

"What?" he said, stupidly.

Mycroft was looking directly at him. His expression was all civility, but the eerie grey eyes still gave Greg the impression that he was being mesmerised.

"Sherlock," Mycroft elaborated, with an airy wave of his hand. "Sherlock, John… Ms. Morstan. I'd like you to forget about it."

Greg shook his head. "You know I can't do that."

"Not personally, no. What's known cannot be unknown, after all." He raised his brows in an expression that, to Greg, looked somehow wistful. "I'm not asking you as Sherlock's friend. But professionally... as a personal favour."

Greg frowned, looking down at the fly in his hands to avoid that piercing gaze.

"No point in asking you how you know I know," he said, rhetorically. "But will you at least tell me why? Don't you _want_ her brought in?"

Mycroft hesitated.

"You know how much John means to Sherlock," he began, obliquely. "At the moment, John is angry, as he has every right to be; but eventually that anger will cool."

Mycroft drew a long breath through his nose, his chest expanding beneath the ridiculous country tweed. Greg wondered where all this was going.

"Someone is trying to get to Sherlock through Mary, and through Sherlock to me. And we have let them, Inspector. Once again, we have played the long game, my brother and I, at the expense of many people, but most especially at the expense of John Watson."

A fish had taken Mycroft's line, and he reeled it in with practised ease. Greg found himself admiring the surety of Mycroft's hands; the understated competence with which they drew the hook from the gasping mouth, and the efficient flick of the knife. They were like Sherlock's hands in their dexterity, but without Sherlock's impetuousness, without that constant, restless motion.

"What John will do, I wonder?" Mycroft asked. "When he finds that his child, his marriage, his future, everything he has longed for, have been jeopardised, once again, by the Holmes brothers?"

Over his shoulder, he flashed Greg a small, self-deprecating smile. "Were John to decide that he wanted no more part of it, were he to take his child and go, as he would be well within his rights to do, I do not honestly think that Sherlock could bear it."

(And what touches my brother, his expression seemed to say, touches me).

Greg was quiet awhile, still watching Mycroft's hands. He knew what he wanted to say; he just didn't know the right words.

"I think maybe you're not giving John enough credit," he said at last. He swallowed, watching the slow spinning of a yellowed leaf, his face turned from Mycroft and his unsettling, perceptive eyes.

"I think John's in love with him."

It came out more baldly than he had intended, and Greg hastened to repair the damage, uncomfortably aware of Mycroft's eyes on the back of his neck.

"That is… I don't mean… John wouldn't just walk away. Not from him."

Greg felt uncomfortably as though he were betraying a trust. It wasn't anything that John had told him, not explicitly; but he felt as though he'd been privy, this weekend, to a part of them that people seldom saw, a secret that wasn't his to share.

"Gregory," Mycroft said softly, and the rare use of his first name made him look up. Mycroft's eyes held his, and Greg found himself wishing he could take it back.

"Sorry. Forget I said anything. It's not…"

"No," Mycroft cut in. "I understand entirely. But –" he hesitated. "There are some things, for some people, that are more difficult to acknowledge than to know."

In the soft silence that followed this remark, Greg heard a muffled exchange of voices from the tent behind them. There were the sounds of a scuffle, and the blue canvas bobbed and tugged at its guy ropes with the motion. He heard John's yelp, and a giggle, and the low rumble of Sherlock's laughter.

The smile with which Mycroft favoured him was sad, and strangely sweet.

"I think perhaps it is too late for that particular Rubicon."

* * *

It was past ten o'clock, and Greg and Mycroft were sitting on the bank drinking black, bitter coffee by the time two tousled and yawning heads emerged from between the tent flaps. Greg's eyes travelled with amusement from John's crumpled shirt and dishevelled hair to Sherlock's flushed chest and pink cheeks. Mycroft, by his supercilious smirk, found it equally amusing.

Sherlock wriggled on all fours from beneath the tent, nudging the canvas out of the way with his head. He crawled several feet into the field, trailing John's sleeping bag, and stopped dead.

"What're _you_ doing here?"

Mycroft's smirk widened.

"I invited him," Greg said hastily, hoping to forestall the inevitable argument.

Sherlock's eyes narrowed. "You didn't."

"He did, as a matter of fact."

"Only after you'd already arrived."

"I happen to enjoy fishing."

"You also enjoy assassinations and the threat of nuclear warfare."

Mycroft smiled reminiscently. "True."

"What _are_ you doing here?" John asked, plonking himself down next to Greg and reaching for the coffee. Mycroft passed him a clean mug with exaggerated courtesy.

"Aren't I allowed to check up on my baby brother?"

Sherlock scowled. "No."

"But you've been having so much _fun,_ " Mycroft said, arching a fastidious eyebrow. "Though if you don't mind, I shall steer clear of the scantily-clad fireside frolicking."

"A mercy for which we are all immensely thankful, believe me."

John frowned. "Ok, how?"

"Really, Doctor Watson, it was simplicity itself. The traces of a large fire encircled by scuffed grass and muddy footprints. From the sodden clothing strewn about the place, I infer that some kind of impromptu dip took place… Though I note with interest that Inspector Lestrade is the only one of you who has since bothered to change his underpants." He wrinkled his nose in distaste.

John glanced reflexively down at his own crotch. Sure enough, his lower half was still clad in last night's grass-stained and wrinkled boxer shorts. "Oh bloody hell."

Mycroft smirked.

* * *

It had been, John mused contentedly, a near-perfect day. He sat sprawled in one of the last-remaining patches of sunlight, a bottle of beer in his left hand. Sherlock lay beside him, his fingers steepled in front of his mouth and his mind somewhere else entirely. The sun still lent a gleam of warmth, though the earth beneath them had already begun to cool as the shadows drew in. A few hundred metres downstream, Greg and Mycroft were just beginning to pack away their rods.

He wasn't quite sure how, but John felt better. His late-night talk with Sherlock had released something, as though a catch in his chest had somehow been loosened. He didn't know what he was going to do, but he knew, somehow, that things would work out. Didn't they always? As long as Sherlock was there, he'd be ok.

They packed slowly, too content in the fading afternoon to hurry. Sherlock lay on the bank, still buried in his mind, but Mycroft lent a hand without complaint. As Greg slammed the tray of the land rover closed, Sherlock finally stirred. He rolled to his feet with the usual effortless grace, and favoured John with a rare smile.

"I thought perhaps you two might like to take my car," Mycroft said, proffering his keys to John. "Providing, that is, that you do not mind my begging a lift of you, Inspector? We are going in approximately the same direction, after all."

Greg looked a little startled, but he nodded. "Yeah, no worries. Saves me fighting my way through to Baker Street."

"Guess that's it then," John said, a little awkwardly, offering his hand. "Thanks Greg. It's been good."

Greg shook the offered hand, clapping him roughly on the shoulder. "Any time. Really."

Mycroft raised his eyebrows at Sherlock, who coughed ungraciously.

"Yes… Thank you Lestrade. It has been… informative."

Greg chuckled. "No charge."

He swung himself up into the driver's seat, and Mycroft got in beside him. He turned the land rover and swung it up towards the gate, raising a hand in the rear-view mirror in farewell.

"What was all that about?" John asked, as the tail lights bounced and lurched away up towards the road. Sherlock's mouth twitched.

"If I am not very much mistaken, my brother is attempting to make a friend."

John blinked. "You can't be serious. _Greg?_ "

Sherlock shrugged. "Why not?"

"Well… That's… novel. I mean good on him, and that…" he tailed off, looking up the hill towards the road. Then he chuckled, a little embarrassed, and glanced up to meet Sherlock's eye. "Friends are – y'know – making friends is good."

Sherlock laughed, leaning over to filch the keys from John's pocket.

"I've never regretted it," he said.

.

* * *

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 **Author's Note:** Thanks everyone for your kind reviews. :-) This is the end of the road for this particular story, but I've just started posting another (with actual plot!) for those who are interested. It has the advantage of being at least 30% written already, so hopefully you shouldn't be left waiting so long for updates! Cheers. - Evermind.


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